Friday, December 30, 2011

That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed." -Algernon Sydney

"Man's inhumanity to man is not the last word. The truth lies deeper. It is economic slavery, the savage struggle for a crumb, that has converted mankind into wolves and sheep." -Alexander Berkman

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick.'" -Mikhail Bakunin

"Courage is not the absence of fear but the awareness that something else is more important." -Stephan Covey

"I may not be able to say all I think; but I am not going to say anything that I do not think. I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets." -Eugene V. Debs

"If you don't have enemies, you don't have character." -Paul Newman

"I am only one,But still I am one.I cannot do everything,But still I can do something;And because I cannot do everythingI will not refuse to do the something that I can do."

-Edward Everett Hale

"Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time — of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid." -Stephan Colbert

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Of course, we’ve all seen signs on the freeways before: usually hand- or spray-painted bed sheets or butcher paper, hastily scrawled with messages like “Stop the War!” or “No Blood for Oil!” hung loosely or held by protesters on top of overpasses.

The difference between this and freewayblogging is simple: with freewayblogging you use a stiff medium, either cardboard or wood, painted white, and lettered in black with an overhead projector so it can actually be read.You don’t just make one sign and hold it, you make lots of signs and post them everywhere, covering as much traffic on as many freeways as you can with the least amount of effort.

Freewayblogging means you’re fighting an information war - a battle of ideas - and that the only way to win that war is to state one’s case as well and succinctly as they can in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

The warrior’s creed is to do as much as you can with as little as possible, to avoid being captured or killed and to always try to preserve one’s strength - physically, mentally and emotionally - for the long battle ahead.

The true warrior understands that they’re in it for the long run - win or lose – and they don’t stop fighting until the war is over.It’s not enough to just participate.

Monday, December 26, 2011

In terms of sheer convenience, it's really hard to beat this overpass on the Pasadena freeway just east of downtown. Here signhanging is simply a matter of parking, walking thirty five feet or so and dropping the cardboard in between the railing and the fence. No fumbling around with bungee cords or duct tape, just drop and go.

(Signs pictured have appeared over the past month.)

This just came in the mail: Posted December 9th and measuring 27 feet across, this sign stayed up over 24 hours and was installed in seconds.

This sign, on the other hand, stayed up for five days, with over half a million drivers passing underneath.

This sign has been up for close to a month now, in plain view of literally millions of drivers. Although difficult to reach, it's by no means impossible, but for some reason nobody has bothered to take it down.

I'm a big fan of this guardrail. Hovering just above eight lanes of some of LA's densest traffic, these signs are almost close enough to touch. Good luck taking them down though: to physically get off of the the freeway, back to the sign and back on the freeway again will cost you dearly in terms of time and mileage.

Nevertheless, a motivated individual could pull it all off in ten or fifteen minutes, so it confuses me to see these signs staying up for days and weeks on end.

Could it be that each and every one of the 110.000 people passing by per day agreed not only with the content of the sign, but the right of the sign to be there?

Or could it be that none of 110,000 drivers per day who disagreed with the sign actually had the extra ten or fifteen minutes required to do something about it?

Either way looks bad for America, but good for the signposter.

If you've got a point you want to make, or a message you want to spread, you won't find a more abundant and captive audience than freeway traffic, or a better way of reaching them than simply putting up signs.

What's important is to take some time, practice some art, and make them look good.

Monday, December 19, 2011

"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less."

"I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions."

"There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them."

"There's always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side."

"The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle."

"Many people hardly ever see a politician as a person anymore.Instead, a politician is a shadow they watch on television, not knowing whether he is speaking impromptu or reading a text written for him by anonymous advisers or experts from a screen hidden behind the cameras."

"We live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain."